“Probably.”
“There are no cars near the monastery. No tourists. Maybe no one’s here because of the earthquake. I wonder what they use this place for today.”
“I heard that a few monks still maintain it, but not many people ever see them.”
They came to a closed wrought iron gate, which sat across an arched entryway built from massive stones. Marcus pulled the gate open, the hinges screeching from lack of oil. They walked into the old courtyard. It was laced in aged wrought iron banisters tiered along cobblestone paths, and dotted throughout with cedar trees, stone benches and tables. They stepped around a wall and into a garden area.
“Halt! Both stop where you are.”
Marcus and Alicia stopped walking. Rahim said, “Now, turn around, slowly.”
They turned to face Narsi and Rahim. Narsi gripped a pistol and pointed it in the center of Marcus’s chest. “Where is the flash drive?” Rahim asked.
Marcus reached into his shirt pocket. “Right here.”
“Hand it to me.”
“I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with a pistol pointed at me.”
Rahim gestured and Narsi lowered the gun. Rahim smiled. “Let me have the drive.”
“As far as I know, Brandi’s plane hasn’t landed safely.”
“Now that you have brought the drive, it will.”
“What assurance does Alicia have that her niece will not be harmed and that her plane will touch down without incident?”
“We are here, aren’t we?”
Alicia said, “That’s not good enough. Brandi still has two hours before landing.”
Rahim grinned and stepped closer to Alicia. “I follow the Koran. It does not permit me to lie if I am to follow it in every respect. And I do. Now, give me that drive.”
Marcus tossed the flash drive to Rahim. “That’s part A.”
Rahim looked at the drive in his hand. His eyebrows arched. “Part A?”
“Part B is in the safe inside my room at the Mount Zion Hotel.” Marcus pulled a business card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Rahim. “On the back of the card is the combination to the room safe. The room is rented for another three days. Here’s the key to the room. You can go get the other drive and you will have all you need. The drive you have, the red one, is to be inserted in the operation system first. It’s the key to unlocking the Myrtus worm. The second drive has the final dose of coding needed to kill it for good.”
“This wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Neither was a bomb! Your people made the decision to plant a bomb on a plane that’s carrying her niece and two hundred other innocent people. That’s a game changer.”
Rahim grinned and glanced at Alicia. “The woman comes with us.” Narsi pointed his gun at Marcus.
A man suddenly appeared.
In the courtyard, a monk stood near the base of a tall cedar tree, his face hidden by the hood, his body covered by a long, white cloak. Narsi looked at the monk.
It was all the time Marcus needed. He drew the Beretta from his back and leveled the gun at Rahim. “Tell him to drop the gun! If he doesn’t, I guarantee I’ll put a bullet in your heart before he can point that barrel my way.”
Rahim’s lips tightened. A vein wriggled above his right eyebrow. “Put your gun down, Narsi.”
“I can take him!”
“Do you want to chance that?” Marcus asked.
“Put the gun down!” shouted Rahim. Narsi did as ordered.
“You’ve got the drive,” Marcus said, motioning for them to leave. “You know where the other one’s located. You have the combination to the safe. Now go! I don’t want to ever see you two again.”
The men turned to leave. Rahim paused and said, “If these flash drives fail, part A and part B, part three is C, see us come for you. And we’ll start with the woman and the internal acid bath first. Payback is hell on earth.”
Marcus said nothing for a few seconds. “Hey, Rahim!”
The men turned around.
Marcus said, “Here.” He reached in his pocket, pulled out Taheera’s cell phone and tossed it to Rahim. “It’s Taheera’s mobile. I don’t want to ever see it again, either.”
Rahim dropped the phone into his coat pocket and the men walked out of the courtyard.
Alicia glanced back toward the monk. “Paul, where’d he go? The monk…he vanished.”
NINETY-FIVE
Marcus drove south on Highway 6, keeping to the speed limits. He took Highway 35 into the town of Kiryat Gat. “Let’s see if Brandi’s plane landed safely,” he said, pulling into the parking lot of the train station.
Alicia found an Internet connection on her laptop. “Give me a sec.” She punched the keyboard. “Yes! Brandi’s plane is fine. She’s at Heathrow. There’s coverage on the BBC.” Alicia’s eyes watered. She wiped a single tear from her cheek. “Look — there’s video of my sister Dianne and her husband, Sam, meeting Brandi.”
Marcus glanced at the screen and smiled.
Alicia said, “Thank you, Paul. You risked so much for this moment.”
“So did you. The risks haven’t gone away. When the Iranians insert the two flash drives, it will be a matter of minutes before the combination shuts down and destroys their entire nuclear facility at Natnaz.”
“What did you do?”
“I created a personality into the Myrtus worm. The programming gave the Iranians the illusion that the worm was disabled, but in reality I programmed it to destroy the centrifuges at a specific time. And this will happen even if Rahim doesn’t insert the flash drives into their system. It’s been preprogrammed.”
“Paul, you should get some kind of medal. But, yet the Mossad, CIA, and madman Jonathon Carlson are all hunting you.”
“Unfortunately, they’re hunting both of us. And that’s because you’re with me. Alicia, get off here. Catch a train. Get out of Israel. Contact Bill Gray. He’ll get you back to the states. It’s me they want. They’ll come for me.”
“No! I can’t leave you!”
“Brandi’s safe. It’s too dangerous! You have to leave.”
“I won’t abandon you.”
“They want the information on the other drive I have, and they want the spear. For madmen like Carlson, it’s the illusion of absolute power if they can own something like the Spear of Destiny, the spear being the ultimate power trophy. Go on, you can leave now. Just disappear until this ends.”
“Will it end, Paul? The information on the drive might help it end. It might help start a fresh tomorrow. But, we don’t know that. I do know that I can’t catch some train bound for nowhere after what we’ve gone through together. I’m not leaving you alone. Not now. Not ever.” She leaned over and kissed him tenderly on the lips.
Marcus searched her eyes. He glanced at a train pulling into the station, and then reached under the front seat for the spearhead and flash drive, which he deposited back into his pockets. “Okay, let’s go. First, we need to find a disposable phone and make a call.”
Ten minutes later, Marcus paid cash to buy a disposable mobile phone from a store in the heart of Kiryat Gat. He returned to the car, got in the front seat with Alicia and said, “Key in the GPS locator data for the mobile phone I tossed to Rahim.”